Leftovers

Sometimes a thought pops into my head that
would be fun to expand into a column, but then
I start writing and it turns out there’s just not
800 words of interest there. So here are some of those
snippets stuffed together to make a nice casserole of
quick bites.

1. From time to time, a story circulates around the
Internet claiming “autocross isn’t ‘real’ racing” or
some such thing. The results are predictable: a flurry of
loud defenders or detractors, long message board posts
explaining why the writer is a genius or a moderately
high-functioning idiot, counter-essays and general
social media posturing.

Well, they’re all wrong.

The real answer is that it’s a stupid question to begin
with. It’s like saying, “This Szechuan Beef isn’t a “real’
cheeseburger.” It’s pointless. You’re making a value
judgment on two disparate activities that just happen
to involve similar skills. Both the Szechuan Beef and
the cheeseburger contain beef, are delicious and filling,
and even the post-meal gas from both will give
you pleasant memories, but no one is saying the existence
of one decreases the value of the other.

It’s cheap and pointless, and if you get suckered into
the argument, you should go somewhere and be alone
with your shame for a while.

2. Like it or not, self-driving cars are coming. Personally,
I look forward to the day cars can handle
the mundane commute on their own, even if I’m just
saying that so I don’t get put at the front of the murder
line when the robots eventually take over.

And speaking of taking over, not only are self-driving
cars coming, but Stanford built one that actually
lapped Thunderhill faster than a human driver. Stanford’s
Audi TT, nicknamed “Shelby” likely because it
made absolutely no contextual sense, lapped Thunderhill
a full 0.4 second faster than David Vodden. If that
name isn’t familiar to you, trust me when I say he knows
a thing or two
about getting
around Thunderhill
quickly:
He’s the CEO
of the track
as well as an
accomplished
club racer.

Stanford
is now busily
programming
their fully
automated
race car to
make message
board posts
complaining
about rules creep, to backhandedly accuse faster
robots of cheating, and to promptly produce a list of
excuses should it ever get bested in the future.

3. I’m utterly in love with my new MR2. You may
have seen a story in the previous issue about the guys
at (Prime Performance Auto)[primemr2.com], who build
these awesome resto-mod, second-gen MR2s with
updated powerplants. Well, I bought one, and it feels
like coming home every time I step inside.

There was something about the Japanese sporty cars
of the early 1990s that made them as close to perfect
as we’ve seen in any era of automobile. Yeah, there
were a few misses, but if you look at those years you’ll
see that pretty much every Japanese manufacturer had
a sporty offering that has gone on to become iconic,
if not downright legendary.

This MR2 has features that we’ll never see again:
low windowsills, a huge windshield with a great view,
a snappy (some may say too snappy) chassis, and
one-of-a-kind looks. Safety and bumper regulations
have taken much of this away, and while I applaud
increased safety for the masses, I do miss a few of the
unsafe things that made that era great.

4. After my first few autocross outings in my new
Formula 500, I came to a realization: Having a body
with some sort of usable muscle structure would be
a great benefit to driving a car that placed physical
demands on the driver.

So earlier this year I contracted with a personal
trainer and have been undergoing his abuse twice a
week. I’ve learned the following:

a. Weights are heavy. Seriously. Have you ever tried
to lift them? In today’s amazing world of high-tech
materials and space-aged fibers, I really think weights
should be made from carbon fiber, or graphite, or
that foam they use on runways during a plane crash.
They’d be much easier to lift.

b. The main reason to work out is to make the next
workout easier. Beginning a workout program pretty
much means you’re just going to hurt all the time.
So you focus your attention on the stuff your trainer
is making you do, hoping that any extra gym time
you put in makes the next session’s torment somewhat
more bearable. This, however, is spurious logic because:

c. Personal trainers are evil people. They know how
to get in your head, and furthermore, they seem to
enjoy watching grown men cry. Just when I thought I
had mastered that damn step-up box, it was whisked
away and replaced with a device far more malevolent
than anything I could have previously imagined.

But the good news is it is paying off a bit: The car
isn’t tossing me around so much anymore. Everything
still hurts from working out, though, and by the time
the autocross rolls around on the weekend,
I’m ready to just hire Shelby to do my driving
for me.

Comments

I can do better on the "autocross isn't real racing" debate, I think I've come up with a rock-solid counter-argument.

What's the difference between autocross and stage rally or time trials? They're all timed competitions along a finite course where cars do not race head-to-head. Yet, curiously, nobody has ever argued that the WRC or Isle of Man TT aren't "real racing."

There is one thing that's different about autocross though, this difference is the crux of the "prosecution's" argument but it is only implied by them and never stated. If you work down the list of potential differences you'll eventually pin it down - the difference is danger, and relatively speaking, autocross has practically none of it. Instead of celebrating this safety, the "prosecution" romanticizes danger, implicitly arguing that it's a necessary element of "real racing." This is what Bark M. of TTAC did on the latest go-round.

Edit: Yes it is a cheap argument, a bit of a "no true scotsman," but challenging it could eventually strike it down, while dismissing it leaves it to rear its ugly head another day.

Damn you JG....Quit talking about your MR2 before I send mine to Jersey for a summer vacation. :)

Oh and yes...Trainers are evil. I have 2 good friends that are trainers and I swear they get off on seeing people in pain. One was a drill Sargent in a former life so I know be gets off in seeing people in pain.

Unlike pretty much ANY other form of exercise weight training never gets easier, we (trainers) can just raise the weights or change the exercise. Yes we are slightly sadistic, but it takes masochistic people to keep us on business.

It's the trainer's job to take you to your limit without hurting yourself. Many people don't find this fun. Having played numerous RPGs, both in tabletop and computer form, I just look at it as leveling up.

GameboyRMH wrote:
What's the difference between autocross and stage rally or time trials? They're all timed competitions along a finite course where cars do not race head-to-head. Yet, curiously, nobody has ever argued that the WRC or Isle of Man TT aren't "real racing."

LOL … there are some on here that would argue that those aren't "real racing" ….

J.G. interesting topic.
like when a thought pops up, self-driving cars and robots,robots eventually taking over!
back a few yrs ago 1954,when some one said becareful, or you could be replaced by an OBSOLETE robot. that said by a 15yr old girl,YIKES.

do agree Japanese cars of the late 80-early 90s, were some of the best(at least for the money).
i was an RX7 guy, but much respect for most of them!

as a matter of course you should always treat your body like a Temple, not like a dumpster.(Jimmy Buffet).

thinking about gameboys argument"Dangers of racing", after some thought on it, its all about the money, the more you spend in a racing class the more danger involved, think autocross vs Indy 500, or Le Mans,or F1, list goes on, autocross is fun/family thing,relativly low cost, and dangers are minimal. but its still a lot of fun!

GameboyRMH wrote:
I can do better on the "autocross isn't real racing" debate, I think I've come up with a rock-solid counter-argument.
What's the difference between autocross and stage rally or time trials? They're all timed competitions along a finite course where cars do not race head-to-head. Yet, curiously, nobody has ever argued that the WRC or Isle of Man TT aren't "real racing."

jstein77 wrote:
The 'real racing' debate reminds my of something my daughter showed me. She's a competitive swimmer, and occasionally a classmate gives her the "swimming is not a sport" line.
She has some perfect comebacks:
"Swimming is the ONLY sport; the rest are just games."
"Swimming is the only sport where you can get yelled at for breathing."
There's a bunch more like that.

GameboyRMH wrote:
I can do better on the "autocross isn't real racing" debate, I think I've come up with a rock-solid counter-argument.
What's the difference between autocross and stage rally or time trials? They're all timed competitions along a finite course where cars do not race head-to-head. Yet, curiously, nobody has ever argued that the WRC or Isle of Man TT aren't "real racing."

JG, I think you could have turned #1 and 2 into one column fairly easily.

In reply to MrJoshua: Working out does get easier, but that doesn't mean that you're not supposed to get tired when you're done. Also, people can do other fitness activities like hiking, jogging, rock climbing, basketball, football, soccer, etc. plus, the fitness videos where you're doing basic movements. I did a few of those in my PE class, and I was surprised at how tired I got.